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- Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 08:00:41 GMT
- Supersedes: <DAvI95.KLs@deshaw.com>
- Expires: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 08:00:40 GMT
- Message-ID: <DBLFL5.3xx@deshaw.com>
- From: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes)
- Subject: How to Get Information about Networks
- Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.announce.newusers,news.answers
- Reply-To: netannounce@deshaw.com
- Followup-To: news.admin.misc
- Approved: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes)
- Lines: 215
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.admin.misc:42740 news.announce.newusers:1897 news.answers:48219
-
- Archive-name: internet/network-info/part1
- Last-change: 11 May 1995 by netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes)
- Changes-posted-to: news.admin.misc,news.misc,news.answers
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Introduction.
-
- This is a periodic posting on how to get information about the Internet and
- how to get information about connecting to the (US) National Science
- Foundation's NSFNET through an NSF-affiliated regional network, or to get
- commercial Internet service through a commercial service provider.
-
- Because the contents of the documents referred to in this posting are
- constantly being updated, this posting only describes how to obtain a
- current copy rather than providing the data directly.
-
- In this document, electronic mail addresses, commands that you should use
- and other such references are indented by a single TAB character
- (may appear on your screen as some number of spaces, typically 8)
- When you use the reference, do not include the TAB.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Table of Contents.
-
- 1. Introduction.
- 2. Table of Contents.
- 3. The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC).
- 4. Internet documents and specifications.
- 5. Commercial networks.
- 6. Contributors.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC).
-
- The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) makes current
- documentation on the NSFNET available via a mail server, by anonymous ftp,
- gopher, WAIS and the World-Wide Web. If all else fails, you can contact
- them by phone. The InterNIC has a wealth of documents on the Internet; by
- the time you finish reading the introductory ones, you probably won't need
- this posting any more!
-
- + Getting information via electronic mail. (some sort of E-mail access needed)
-
- If you're on some sort of network that can send and receive electronic
- mail from the Internet, you can get various documents from the InterNIC's
- automated mail server. Send mail to
-
- mailserv@is.internic.net
-
- and leave the "Subject" line blank. Here's a suggested initial message:
-
- begin
- help
- index
- send about-infoguide/about-infoguide
- end
-
- Be sure your mailer puts out a valid "From:" line that the server can
- respond to! If you have problems with the reply (eg. you don't get
- a reply within a few days), try sending the same message with the line
-
- reply YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS
-
- after the begin line. Make sure YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS is one that can
- be replied to from the Internet. Ask your site's postmaster for
- help, if you need to.
-
-
- + Using Gopher (Internet access needed)
-
- Use your "gopher" client program to connect to
- gopher.internic.net
-
- eg. on a typical Unix machine, try
- gopher gopher.internic.net
-
- or, if you do not have a gopher client installed, you can use a
- "telnet" client program to connect to
- gopher.internic.net
-
- eg.
- telnet gopher.internic.net
-
- When you get the login: prompt, reply
-
- gopher
-
- + Using the anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) (Internet access needed)
-
- Use your FTP client program to connect to
- is.internic.net
-
- eg.
- ftp is.internic.net
-
- When you get the login: prompt, reply
-
- anonymous
-
- and follow the instructions on your screen.
-
-
- + Using Wide Area Information Services (WAIS) (Internet access needed)
-
- source name: internic-infoguide
- server name: is.internic.net
-
- + World-Wide Web (WWW) (Internet access needed)
-
- With your WWW client (eg. Lynx, Mosaic or WWW), give the reference
-
- http://www.internic.net/
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Internet documents and specifications.
-
- General Internet information documents are available from the
- DDN Network Information Center (which is part of the Internet).
- There are several "For Your Information (FYI)" documents
- published as part of the Internet "Request For Comments (RFC)"
- series of documents. These can be helpful in getting a better
- understanding of the Internet and its services and organization.
- Experienced, novice, and would-be Internet users can all benefit
- from reading these documents.
-
- Included among these are:
-
- RFC-1325 FYI-4: Answers to commonly asked "new Internet user" questions
- RFC-1462 FYI-20: "What is the Internet"
- RFC-1208 Glossary of Networking Terms
- RFC-1207 FYI: Answers to commonly asked "experienced Internet user" questions
- RFC-1178 Choosing a Name for your Computer
- RFC-1150 FYI on FYI: Introduction to the FYI notes
-
- To learn how to retrieve RFCs, get the following document by anonymous
- ftp from isi.edu:
-
- in-notes/rfc-retrieval.txt
-
- You can also get the information by sending electronic mail to
-
- rfc-info@isi.edu
-
- with the body of the message:
-
- help: ways_to_get_rfcs
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Commercial networks.
-
- The Internet is composed of many networks, not just those sponsored or
- affiliated with the US Government. There are also commercial Internet
- service providers. Commercial firms that might not meet requirements for
- connecting to a US Government-related network can still connect to the
- TCP/IP Internet via commercial service providers not affiliated with the
- NSFNET or the DDN Internet.
-
- For a list of dialup Internet service providers, send email to
- info-deli-server@netcom.com with the single line query:
- Send PDIAL
-
- For a list of Internet service providers that offer Integrated
- Services Digital Network (ISDN) high-speed dialup access
- at 64kbps or higher, try
- http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn
-
- For a list of Internet (and UUCP) service providers, see the frequent
- posting "How to Become a Usenet Site" in the news.admin.misc,
- news.announce.newusers and news.answers newsgroups. (Archive-name:
- usenet/site-setup) You can also get this document by anonymous ftp from
- rtfm.mit.edu, or by sending mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the
- single line request:
- send usenet-by-group/news.announce.newusers/How_to_become_a_Usenet_site
-
- O'Reilly and Associates has a mail server that provides a list
- of Internet Access providers who offer dedicated line connections.
- Send e-mail to:
- dlist@ora.com
- with an empty message body. If you have problems getting the
- information from dlist, send email to mj@ora.com
-
- If you have access to the WWW, you can get more info on
- network providers in different countries from the rather
- large list of all registered WWW servers at:
- http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Geographical.html
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Contributors
-
- This is a list of people who have made contributions to this document.
-
- The first version of this document was written by Randall Atkinson
- <randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu>
-
- It was enhanced & edited until 5/93 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford).
-
- It was rewritten in Mar 94 by Mark Moraes <moraes@deshaw.com>, also the
- current maintainer.
-
- Thanks to the following for their contributions:
-
- Ed Vielmetti <emv@msen.com>
- Denis Lafont <dl@apysoft.oleane.com>
- Mary Jane Caswell-Stephenson <mj@ora.com>
- Daniel R. Kegel <dank@alumni.caltech.edu>
-
- --
-